“I thought the line ‘I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska’ was very funny. I think the word is “sarcasm”. In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.”

- Andrea Fay Friedman, the actress with down syndrome whose voice was featured on last week’s family guy in an email to the New York Times. Andrea sent this after Bristol Palin made a public statment about howhurtful she found the episode to be.

A loaf of French bread! HA!

Did you guys catch the last episode of Family Guy? If not, check out the clip above. It’s a scene where Chris goes on a date with a mentally retarded girl, who uhhhh, kinda sorta happens to be the daughter of a former Alaskan governor? While Sarah Palin’s name is never mentioned, an animated retarded girl claiming that her mother is a former Alaskan governor is a pretty clear jab.

The subject of Sarah’s son Trig’s downs syndrome has been in the news quite a bit. It’s unfortunate that Sarah Palin is so disliked, and I say that only because her mentally handicapped child is a target of meanies and people with grade-school senses of humor. Don’t get me wrong, I hate that woman too, but as if we really needed to give people another reason to use the word “retarded” as a pejorative, right? I can’t say I’m guilt-free, I occasionally use the word myself (I blame my suburban Massachusetts upbringing, sad to say. I heard the words “wicked retarded” far too many times as a youngster), but I know it’s wrong and feel incredible guilt when I do use the word. Normally I think Family Guy can be pretty spot-on with their topical humor (or at least gut-bustingly funny in a slightly cheap way),  but this feels like it’s going a bit too far and perhaps pandering to the wrong audience. What do you think?

Because I can’t watch it.

First off, I apologize for my recent absence around these parts. My laptop is very sick. It’s at the Apple store right now undergoing emergency surgery, and hopefully it will come out alive and well. My friend lent me her laptop in the interim, but trying to be creative on a foreign computer is kind of like Mark McGwire playing baseball without steroids; it’s just not as impressive and things take much longer.

But I thought I’d share with you the video footage Sarah Palin’s Fox News debut. Maybe I could have watched the whole thing if she hadn’t been sitting next to Bill O’Reilly, who, in the first few minutes, tries to convince me that Sarah Palin is not a threat because she is both a mother and an American. Because, you know, once we chicks pop out kids in this country, we lose all potency to effect change in other arenas. There was nothing misogynistic about that remark, Bill. You’re a peach.

Furthermore, there is nothing at all threatening about Sarah Palin, unless you care about silly girl things like reproductive rights and foreign policy and evolution and the sheer terror that runs through your body when you realize how much of the country is reading this woman’s book without throwing something at the wall.

The truth is, I’m not especially angry about Sarah doing Fox News. I would way rather have her there, preaching to her choir, than in public office, capable of impacting those of us who don’t watch Fox News.

You’d think that if your daughter’s baby daddy was showing his junk for money in Playgirl and shit-talking you on national television while disclosing family secrets, you probably wouldn’t want to sit around a table with him talking about how moist this year’s turkey is, but that Sarah Palin just won’t be put in a mold!

In an interview with Oprah that’s due to air on November 16th, Palin said she’d be more than happy to have Levi Johnston at her Thanksgiving table. “It’s lovely to think that he would ever even consider such a thing… He is a part of the family and you want to bring him in the fold and kind of under your wing. And he needs that, too, Oprah. I think he needs to know that he is loved and he has the most beautiful child and this can all work out for good.”

It’s pretty clear that Palin’s not under the impression that this would ever happen, but at least publicly she’s pretending that there’s a chance they have a salvageable relationship. “We don’t have to keep going down this road of controversy and drama all the time. We’re not really into the drama. We don’t really like that. We’re more productive. We have other things to concentrate on.” Yeah, like a potential custody battle, rumors of divorce and making sure your book winds up on the best seller list, Sarah.

Throughout the Levi Johnston Famewhore Tour ’09, Sarah Palin has stayed pretty tight lipped about the whole thing. Surprising because Levi has publicly slandered her in all the right places. He went so far as to take his mother and sister to Tyra where they had a “Johnston Family Speaks Out”-type special in which numerous private details about both Palin and her daughter, Bristol. After Levi’s appearance on CBS’ The Early Show this morning, Palin couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

Levi flat-out said in his interview that Palin would refer to her son Trigg, who has Down Syndrome, as “retarded” and then followed that by saying that he has a lot more info that would damage whatever rep she has left. “You know, I mean, if I really wanted to hurt her, I could very easily. But there’s – I’m not gonna do it.”

Obviously a line was crossed over at the Palin camp because a statement was issued this afternoon by Palin who sounds like she’s not messing around, either. “We have purposefully ignored the mean spirited, malicious and untrue attacks on our family,” Palin says in a statement. “We, like many, are appalled at the inflammatory statements being made or implied. Trig is our ‘blessed little angel’ who knows it and is lovingly called that every day of his life.”

With Levi scheduled to shoot Playgirl and plenty of more publicity opportunities on the line, I bet there’s going to be a lot more chances for him to go after the Palin’s. I would suggest that he not do it, but deep down I know that I just want to hear the juicy gossip.

I know, I know, everyone’s going to be making that joke today. It’s okay. It’s funny. And I’m just delighted to hear that Levi Johnston is going to pose for Playgirl. I totally thought Playgirl had folded. What a fantastic way to make porn for “women” relevant again. To prepare, Levi is training three hours a day, six nights a week at an Anchorage gym with a local body builder. (That local body builder is not Sarah Palin.) He hasn’t reached a formal agreement with Playgirl, but his attorney says that it’s “a foregone conclusion.” Which may mean he’s bullshitting this whole thing for publicity, or to strong-arm Playgirl into paying him more money. Which, again, is totally okay with me.

I have to admit, I love Levi Johnston. I mean, the poor guy was just trying to fuck the hottest girl at his high school without a rubber — a common teenage pursuit — and then her mother had to go and run for Vice President of the fucking United States and drag him into a national spotlight, force him to propose to the aforementioned hot girl (whom he was just trying to fuck without a rubber, not freakin’ marry), and then the whole family treats him like shit and nobody will even let him see his baby. He got dealt a fairly crappy hand here, and I love that he’s dealing with it by making every possible exploitative penny and attempting to muddy the Palin name in the process. It’s how I like to think I’d behave in similar circumstances.

I have to admit something else. The AP’s headline for this story is “Father of Palin’s grandson to pose for Playgirl.” I read that like ten times wondering to myself who the hell was posing for Playgirl. “Father of Palin’s grandson” is just way too much dot-connecting for me. I didn’t understand it was Levi until I read the article. I’m still laughing to myself about that one.